


Sandcastles for Sammy

by chucks_prophet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Based on That AU Anyway, Beaches, But Sam and Dean Have a Better Relationship, California, Day At The Beach, Dean Still Has Problems With Feeling Things, Dean and Feelings, Domestic Fluff, Episode: s02e20 What Is and What Should Never Be, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, F/M, Flashbacks, Fluff, Gen, Jessica Moore and Sam Winchester are Cute, Light Angst, M/M, Palo Alto, Sam Winchester at Stanford, Some Adult Humor Just Cos, Surprises, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2019-02-28 15:15:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13274151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chucks_prophet/pseuds/chucks_prophet
Summary: He emptied Sam’s seashell bucket, scooped up some sand, and turned the pail over. Dean repeated this process until Sam was surrounded by mounds of sand. “Sandcastles,” Dean told his baby brother, whose crying had slowed and his copper eyes began to fill with wonder, “Nothing can hurt ya now, Sammy.”





	Sandcastles for Sammy

**Author's Note:**

> This is just something cute I whipped up while binging Markiplier's Makes videos. One involved him and the guys hosting a sandcastle building competition and from that, this was birthed.
> 
> Also, yes, I know, it's January here in the northern hemisphere, it's freezing, why would anyone want to go to the beach right now, to which I reply - I CAN DREAM, HAROLD! (Also, more eloquently: I do not control my muse. My muse controls me.)

Dean Winchester is by no means an actor, but he’s an expert at concealing his emotions.  

When he’s happy, he has no need to do so. Not on his first day in Palo Alto, sipping on a margarita in Half Moon Bay in a bar overlooking the ocean. His eyes crinkle the way his lime, perched on the rim of his glass opposite a bright pink umbrella he opts not to lose his masculinity over for the night, does as he pinches the remaining juice into it. His nose is a little scrunched too, but only because of realizing just how much lime he’s squeezed, pulling the blanket of golden freckles around his nose further up his face. His smile, if you ask his fiancé Cas, is the most undoubtedly breathtaking. It’s like the sunset watching over the waters: bright and big and still so far-reaching, managing to add a little more orange and yellows to everyone within his influence.

On his sixth day, his happiness becomes more staged. It’s the day before he and Cas have to Uber back to the airport. Granted, it’s a day not much different than the five that came before: The four of them are spending another well-deserved beach day—the kind that engulfs your toes like memory foam in pure, practically untouched sand and paints every exposed line of skin red.

Sam’s idling quietly along the shore (or as quiet as he can for a man of his height—his feet have already ruffled a few bird’s feathers), collecting seashells he deems worthy of his fiancée’s affections just before she tackles him. Sam fights back, chasing Jess halfway into the water. Once he has her in his grasp, he wraps his arms around her and plants a sweet kiss to her lips. She returns the sentiment, but doesn’t waste her opportunity to shove Sam into an oncoming wave.

Aside from filling up his bucket, Dean’s strayed away from the water in favor of sandcastle building. It’s a laughable sight for passerbyers: a man nearing his thirties in Batman swim shorts, molding sand to his liking. But only those close to Dean can see the corner of his lip being tugged by an unforeseeable but very real force.

Back when all he and Sam had to worry about was getting a toy inside their Happy Meal, the Winchesters would road-trip with their father (or at least that’s what John would call moving to the next state over), and every time they saw a beach in the side view mirror, their dad would park the car and let them run around.

One day, chubby and clumsy three-year-old Sam stubbed his toe on a rock. Dean, seven at the time, and their dad rushed to his aid. Although he wasn’t bleeding, the damage was already done, leaving a traumatized Sam to wail. Like a metal detector tracking a Fossil watch, Dean took in his father’s sandy feet and struck an idea. He emptied Sam’s seashell bucket, scooped up some sand, and turned the pail over. Dean repeated this process until Sam was surrounded by mounds of sand. “Sandcastles,” Dean told his baby brother, whose crying had slowed and his copper eyes began to fill with wonder, “Nothing can hurt ya now, Sammy.”

“We should live in a house on a beach together one day,” Sam posed half a decade later while making far more impressive sandcastles on Copper Harbor, an hour north of Houghton. “You could find an auto shop close by and I can basically be a lawyer anywhere.”

Dean just smiled and replied, “I’d like that, Sammy.”

"Hmm, I like it..."

"I know that voice," Dean says warily as Cas’s deep, raspy voice pulls him back to the present. He watches on in half-amusement as his own fiancé approaches him with tanned fingers to his stubbled chin. "You used that same tone when you suggested peanut butter on my burger. And a threesome. In the same night."

"And did you regret either?"

The blush highlighting the sand stuck to Dean's right cheek answers for him. Cas uses the opportunity to throw something at him. Being a son to a softball captain, Dean catches it with ease. "What's this?" he asks, jangling the set of keys in his hand. It’s too clean to be Dean’s key ring. His has all sorts of keychain styles, from the Chevy logo to a set of mechanic tools that Cas bought him with his name engraved into a mini creeper, which Cas always refers to, to this day, as the “sliding kisser”, since Dean always slides out from whatever car he’s working on to greet him with a kiss.

(Around that same time, Dean found out Cas was a grade school teacher and christened his yardstick a “porn saber” for reasons only the teacher’s lounge bathroom knows.)

Cas’s smile does the same—creep up on him, that is. "The keys to your dream castle."

Dean steals Cas’s signature move, tilting his head to the side as he looks at the keys, this time with the same kind of wonder that clouded his brother’s eyes all those years ago as Sam and Jess start to pad their way back to the shore behind him. "You mean—?"

"He means you, me, Cas, and Jess,” Sam interrupts as Jess rubs his back affectionately. “We'll be three houses away. No more traveling. No more phone calls or Skype dates.”

“Welcome home, Dean,” Jess adds warmly, resting her wet, curly blonde head on Sam’s shoulder.

Dean’s smiling mouth, typically comparable to the sun, is influenced now by the very water it serves: wavering and rippling as single raindrops fall from his emerald skies. Before he can verbally express his thanks, Sam drops down next to him. Setting his seashells aside, he steals Dean’s bucket and refills it with sand. “First thing’s first, if you’re gonna live by the seaside, Sally, you’re gonna have to let me show you how to make a _real_ sandcastle.”

 

 


End file.
